Earlier this month, we linked out to the first three posts in the I Heart Robotics team’s ongoing series about choosing hardware for the fused-filament parts that come off your RepRap-type 3D printer. On Sunday, they published the fourth installment, this time focusing on the best way to make a rotating pin joint between two printed beams, for instance in the “knee” of a robot leg. They experiment with various configurations of pop rivets, tubular rivets, flat washers, spring washers, clevis pins, and E-rings. Click through, below, to check out their results.

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c’t – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

Just FYI, E clips have different sides. one is flat, the other is round.

For example, the clip in this post is upside down. the flat side should be up as it’ll be the “load bearing” side. Looks like the one on the top left is installed correctly.

http://ahsautoshop.wordpress.com ahsautoshop

you don’t think one side is round and the other is flat because they’re punched out that way when they’re made?

http://www.facebook.com/darrin.rice.3 Darrin Rice

Yes, the existence of a flat and a round side (rounded v. sharp edges, really) IS a byproduct of the way e-clips are made, BUT it remains true that orienting the e-clip so that the rounded edges face inward is the Best Known Method of installing them; you want the face with the rounded edges to be against the moving member of your pinned connection. Of course, if you use an e-clip to pin a connection that won’t be in motion, then you don’t need to take into account which side has the rounded edges; abrasion won’t be an issue in your assembly.